Helen Chandler
Helen Chandler ( February 1, 1906 in Charleston, † April 30, 1965 in Los Angeles ) was an American actress. Her most famous role was the presentation of Mina Seward, in Tod Browning's Dracula, from the year 1931.
Chandler's career began in 1917 on Broadway, with the piece Barbara. A few years later, she was already playing in Shakespeare plays such as Richard III. (1920 ) and Ophelia in a modern version of Hamlet ( 1925). When her first film roles were played in 1927, she was already one of the most new actresses on Broadway. Her first film, The Music Master, from 1927 was not a success. The huge success with audiences and critics turned a in 1930, when she in the adaptation of the play Outward Bound starred with Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. the role of a suicide who finds himself on a ship that travels into eternity.
Chandler, who actually initially wanted to play the role of Alice in Alice in Wonderland, but was rejected and instead played the Mina Seward in Dracula, one of the most successful films of the year. In the same year she married the English dramatist Cyril Hume. Critics and film historians are of the opinion that at this time Chandlers alcohol problem started, with whom she had to fight for the rest of their lives. Helen Chandler played with Walter Huston in 1931 in A House Divided, 1931, and Colin Clive in Christopher Strong, 1933. In 1934 she divorced by Cyril Hume and moved between Hollywood and then on Broadway, where it the role of Helen Bennet in Pride and Prejudice, 1935, and starred in Boy Meets Girl. As a Outward Bound was performed again in 1938, she took over the role she had also played in the movie. After her divorce from Hume, she married the English actor Bramwell Fletcher. As Chandlers out of hand took alcohol and drug problems, she was sent in 1940 to a sanatorium. Bramwell Fletcher could be subsequently divorced Chandler. Your poor health prompted the actress to give up her career.